“While trucking companies that deliver goods pay only a portion of highway maintenance costs and no property tax on the highways they use, railways spend billions per year maintaining and upgrading their facilities. The government should lower the railroad companies’ property taxes, since sending goods by rail is clearly a more appropriate mode of ground transportation than highway shipping. For one thing, trains consume only a third of the fuel a truck would use to carry the same load, making them a more cost-effective and environmentally sound mode of transport. Furthermore, since rail lines already exist, increases in rail traffic would not require building new lines at the expense of taxpaying citizens.”
The author concludes that the government ought to lessen the railroad companies' property taxes. To substantiate this conclusion, the author elucidates that the railway transportation is far better than ground transportation because the former requires lower energy consumption. Moreover, if the government would like to increase the rail traffic, it would not be a burden to the citizens because the rail lines already exist. This argument, however, fails to be persuasive for the author's questionable assumptions and logical errors.
Most conspicuously, the author concerns with convoluted monetary and environmental issues as only two criteria to determine the efficacy of mode of transportation yet ignore many relevant factors. Actually, the effectiveness of any mode of transportation is determined by the whole bunch of its structure. For example, the role during city's emergency, the number of commuters and commuters' safety are all important. Hence, only considering the cost-effectiveness and environmental concerns without judging other influential factors is insufficient to define the importance of railway transportation.
Also, although the cost-effectiveness is really crucial as the author's claim, this argument is still fallacious because the author does not analyze the meaning of cost-effectiveness in details. Even if the trains truly require lower energy consumption than the trucks do, the author still overlooks the other costs that are essential in railways delivery. For instance, operating a train station actually use large amount of money on many kinds of expenditures, such as electricity fee, computer ticket box maintenance costs, wages of security guards, janitors, train mechanics, train schedulers, and so on. These are virtually unfound in the trucking operation. The argument would have been strong, if the author could provide the total amount of operating costs of both railways and trucking transportation, so the readers can compare between two modes of transportation.
Finally, it is senseless to conclude that train transportation is most of people's preference. When people would like to travel or send goods, they are concerned with speed and accuracy. Apparently, trucks can offer them all. Trains are largely hinged on the departure schedule each day. In contrast, trucks can start whenever the clients want. Especially when the load is exigently needed, people all prefer trucks to trains. In addition, rail route is quite limited. Trains can only send goods only from one station to another. After arriving the other station, the goods are still need to be passed on to trucks anyway. Therefore, roads make the delivery destination much more reachable, and are still the people's first choice when sending goods.
In summary, this argument is unwarranted. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide additional corroborate that solely the cost-effectiveness and environmental impact determine the amount of property tax that delivery companies have to pay to the government. Furthermore, the exact amount of trains' operating costs and the fuels they consumed should be given. Most importantly, the author also has to provide more information about trucking delivery. This would enable us to accurately compare between two modes of transportation. Without such evidences mentioned above, this argument remains logically unconvincing, and fails to persuade the readers.
The author concludes that the government ought to lessen the railroad companies' property taxes. To substantiate this conclusion, the author elucidates that the railway transportation is far better than ground transportation because the former requires lower energy consumption. Moreover, if the government would like to increase the rail traffic, it would not be a burden to the citizens because the rail lines already exist. This argument, however, fails to be persuasive for the author's questionable assumptions and logical errors.
Most conspicuously, the author concerns with convoluted monetary and environmental issues as only two criteria to determine the efficacy of mode of transportation yet ignore many relevant factors. Actually, the effectiveness of any mode of transportation is determined by the whole bunch of its structure. For example, the role during city's emergency, the number of commuters and commuters' safety are all important. Hence, only considering the cost-effectiveness and environmental concerns without judging other influential factors is insufficient to define the importance of railway transportation.
Also, although the cost-effectiveness is really crucial as the author's claim, this argument is still fallacious because the author does not analyze the meaning of cost-effectiveness in details. Even if the trains truly require lower energy consumption than the trucks do, the author still overlooks the other costs that are essential in railways delivery. For instance, operating a train station actually use large amount of money on many kinds of expenditures, such as electricity fee, computer ticket box maintenance costs, wages of security guards, janitors, train mechanics, train schedulers, and so on. These are virtually unfound in the trucking operation. The argument would have been strong, if the author could provide the total amount of operating costs of both railways and trucking transportation, so the readers can compare between two modes of transportation.
Finally, it is senseless to conclude that train transportation is most of people's preference. When people would like to travel or send goods, they are concerned with speed and accuracy. Apparently, trucks can offer them all. Trains are largely hinged on the departure schedule each day. In contrast, trucks can start whenever the clients want. Especially when the load is exigently needed, people all prefer trucks to trains. In addition, rail route is quite limited. Trains can only send goods only from one station to another. After arriving the other station, the goods are still need to be passed on to trucks anyway. Therefore, roads make the delivery destination much more reachable, and are still the people's first choice when sending goods.
In summary, this argument is unwarranted. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide additional corroborate that solely the cost-effectiveness and environmental impact determine the amount of property tax that delivery companies have to pay to the government. Furthermore, the exact amount of trains' operating costs and the fuels they consumed should be given. Most importantly, the author also has to provide more information about trucking delivery. This would enable us to accurately compare between two modes of transportation. Without such evidences mentioned above, this argument remains logically unconvincing, and fails to persuade the readers.
